If you pick up a used copy of Mercenaries 3D, someone else's progress will likely be there.

You can't erase your saved data in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a decision that's provoked a vocal controversy regarding the rights of consumers and the issues surrounding trade-in games.

GameStop had originally started telling its stores to not accept the game as a trade-in, but a statement released to IGN said that policy had been reversed. VG247 contacted UK retailer HMV, who said it would not be stocking used versions of the game.

"It is Capcom policy not to comment on the choice of retailers to stock any particular product," said the company in a brief statement.

Capcom claims the decision to lock data was not made in response to used games, insinuating it's a technical issue of sorts. That's something many people have taken issue with.

"Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision," said the company, "so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer. In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users."

Capcom expanded on this response through its community site earlier today, too.

"There was no intention of lessening the experience of the game," said Capcom community specialist Sean Baxter. "Essentially, RE Mercs was treated like an arcade fighting game. You unlock characters, levels, etc and they just stay unlocked as they would in an arcade machine. There was no hidden motive to prevent buying used copies. It's not some secret form of DRM. It's simply the way we designed the save system to work with the arcade type of gameplay."

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D went on sale for the 3DS earlier this week.

If you pick up a used copy of Mercenaries 3D, someone else's progress will likely be there.

You can't erase your saved data in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a decision that's provoked a vocal controversy regarding the rights of consumers and the issues surrounding trade-in games.

GameStop had originally started telling its stores to not accept the game as a trade-in, but a statement released to IGN said that policy had been reversed. VG247 contacted UK retailer HMV, who said it would not be stocking used versions of the game.

"It is Capcom policy not to comment on the choice of retailers to stock any particular product," said the company in a brief statement.

Capcom claims the decision to lock data was not made in response to used games, insinuating it's a technical issue of sorts. That's something many people have taken issue with.

"Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision," said the company, "so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer. In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users."

Capcom expanded on this response through its community site earlier today, too.

"There was no intention of lessening the experience of the game," said Capcom community specialist Sean Baxter. "Essentially, RE Mercs was treated like an arcade fighting game. You unlock characters, levels, etc and they just stay unlocked as they would in an arcade machine. There was no hidden motive to prevent buying used copies. It's not some secret form of DRM. It's simply the way we designed the save system to work with the arcade type of gameplay."

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D went on sale for the 3DS earlier this week.

@fenixREVOLUTION: I don't see the big deal I mean it doesn't even have a story mode right?It's like a Pac-man game with unlockables.You play the same thing over and over again but with different bonuses etc. so why are people flipping out?I think their dumb not Capcom if it was like a full fledged RE game then it would make sense but it's not.

@fenixREVOLUTION: I don't see the big deal I mean it doesn't even have a story mode right?It's like a Pac-man game with unlockables.You play the same thing over and over again but with different bonuses etc. so why are people flipping out?

Because unlocking said unlockables is one of the core pieces to the gameplay. I would hate to jump into Diablo III with the best armor and the best spell ranks just because a company decided to hold off on resetting data. It's a stupid move and Capcom is stupid for doing it. Theres no real argument here other than Capcom made a really really bad move.

Capcom could use this as a chance to add something unique. Like use the non-erasable data to create a Tyrant-like boss when it's played on a different system. It would be hilarious to have the ghost of the past owner show up to ruin your high score run.

Apparantly EB Australia are refusing to sell the game now (I don't know if this is actually true, though the game is no longer listed on their website for sale). While I can understand why they'd do it as a company looking to make money, the fact that (PC games aside) if they can't make money off a game reselling it they'll simply refuse to stock it at all seems kind of pathetic.

Not that any of this truly effects me, I had no intention of buying Mercs 3D and Capcom's decision here seems pretty bizarre.

"Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision," said the company, "so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer. In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset...."

Doesn't this kinda contradict itself? How would being able to reset the progress hinder anyone's enjoyment of the game? It's bullshit and Capcom knows it. >.<

@fenixREVOLUTION: I don't see the big deal I mean it doesn't even have a story mode right?It's like a Pac-man game with unlockables.You play the same thing over and over again but with different bonuses etc. so why are people flipping out?

Because unlocking said unlockables is one of the core pieces to the gameplay. I would hate to jump into Diablo III with the best armor and the best spell ranks just because a company decided to hold off on resetting data. It's a stupid move and Capcom is stupid for doing it. Theres no real argument here other than Capcom made a really really bad move.

Mercenaries isn't about unlocking fluff, it's about attempting to get the highest score possible. The age of achievements and WoW grinding has made people assume that unlocking perks for the game is the game rather than the actual gameplay itself.

He's completely right when he compares it to Pac-Man. If the only reason you're playing Pac-Man is to unlock the Super Ghost Bonus and level your Pac-Man up to 50, then you don't know what Pac-Man is.

I don't get their logic. At all. What's the difference between locking the scores to the cartridge or saving them on the 3DS in terms of maintaining an arcade game feel? Had they come up with a better reason, I might have believed them about this not being to prevent used game sales. With that kind of BS logic, though, I'm pretty convinced that they just wanted to make sure people couldn't trade them in.

@whatisdelicious: I honestly don't see what there is to 'not get'. Yeah it sucks, but it's not like their explanation is confusing or misleading. It makes sense.

You don't miss out on anything by playing someone else's saved games, since it's an arcade style score based shooter. (Which is kind of stupid, considering how shooting was never the reason why I played RE games, but whatever. That's not the issue at hand.)

@fenixREVOLUTION: I don't see the big deal I mean it doesn't even have a story mode right?It's like a Pac-man game with unlockables.You play the same thing over and over again but with different bonuses etc. so why are people flipping out?

Because unlocking said unlockables is one of the core pieces to the gameplay. I would hate to jump into Diablo III with the best armor and the best spell ranks just because a company decided to hold off on resetting data. It's a stupid move and Capcom is stupid for doing it. Theres no real argument here other than Capcom made a really really bad move.

Mercenaries isn't about unlocking fluff, it's about attempting to get the highest score possible. The age of achievements and WoW grinding has made people assume that unlocking perks for the game is the game rather than the actual gameplay itself.

He's completely right when he compares it to Pac-Man. If the only reason you're playing Pac-Man is to unlock the Super Ghost Bonus and level your Pac-Man up to 50, then you don't know what Pac-Man is.

The "game" is whatever the player wants it to be. If that's unlocking things as opposed to beating a high score, that's their experience and shouldn't be of any concern to anyone else.

Because unlocking said unlockables is one of the core pieces to the gameplay. I would hate to jump into Diablo III with the best armor and the best spell ranks just because a company decided to hold off on resetting data. It's a stupid move and Capcom is stupid for doing it. Theres no real argument here other than Capcom made a really really bad move.

You win, csoup. Is it really so hard to put a 'delete' save button? Or trust the player not to delete saves when they want to keep re-trying levels? Capcom's argument doesn't hold up, imo.

The Pac-Man analogy fits... But unlockables can be a big part of one's enjoyment. Like in Bayonetta, a kind of game you can argue fits as well. I enjoyed the hell out of that game, but I don't know how I would've felt if I'd bought it and found everything unlocked already. It'd still be an enjoyable game, but there would always be that nagging feeling of "I didn't do anything to deserve these moves/items..."

Capcom's excuse would sound way less flimsy if unerasable saves were the default. "We decided not to add the 'clear save' feature because..." sounds a lot more plausible than "We decided to remove the 'clear save' feature because..."

Apparently Mercs 3D stores your data on a tiny CD-R inside the cart. That's the only technical barrier I could see to erasing data in this day and age.

"Hey it's me your average consumer! I just bought this game all legit like and played the hell out of it because mercs mode is great! Now that I have everything unlocked though, I sure would like to start over and work my way through the game again since I loved playing it so much the first time through!"

Capcom: "Yeeeahhh about that."

Also just wanna put it out there that Super Monkey Ball 3D doesn't let you reset your save either. How come no one made a big deal about that, or did I miss that uprising? I know it's just Monkey Ball and all, but this is just Mercenaries mode on a cart.

@fenixREVOLUTION: I don't see the big deal I mean it doesn't even have a story mode right?It's like a Pac-man game with unlockables.You play the same thing over and over again but with different bonuses etc. so why are people flipping out?

Because unlocking said unlockables is one of the core pieces to the gameplay. I would hate to jump into Diablo III with the best armor and the best spell ranks just because a company decided to hold off on resetting data. It's a stupid move and Capcom is stupid for doing it. Theres no real argument here other than Capcom made a really really bad move.

Mercenaries isn't about unlocking fluff, it's about attempting to get the highest score possible. The age of achievements and WoW grinding has made people assume that unlocking perks for the game is the game rather than the actual gameplay itself.

He's completely right when he compares it to Pac-Man. If the only reason you're playing Pac-Man is to unlock the Super Ghost Bonus and level your Pac-Man up to 50, then you don't know what Pac-Man is.

The "game" is whatever the player wants it to be. If that's unlocking things as opposed to beating a high score, that's their experience and shouldn't be of any concern to anyone else.

What if the "game" for me is the it saying "RESIDENT EEEEVIL" when I hit start on the splash screen, and they make the next one autoload into the main menu? Can I say that they've stripped out a 'core piece of gameplay'?

Mercenaries isn't about unlocking fluff, it's about attempting to get the highest score possible. The age of achievements and WoW grinding has made people assume that unlocking perks for the game is the game rather than the actual gameplay itself.

He's completely right when he compares it to Pac-Man. If the only reason you're playing Pac-Man is to unlock the Super Ghost Bonus and level your Pac-Man up to 50, then you don't know what Pac-Man is.

The "game" is whatever the player wants it to be. If that's unlocking things as opposed to beating a high score, that's their experience and shouldn't be of any concern to anyone else.

What if the "game" for me is the it saying "RESIDENT EEEEVIL" when I hit start on the splash screen, and they make the next one autoload into the main menu? Can I say that they've stripped out a 'core piece of gameplay'?

Of course! You can complain about whatever you want and decide if that's enough to make you not want to play their game. A lot of people would probably think it's silly, but everyone gets something different from their games. I personally think removing the ability for a person to control their save file to be far greater than the removal of a title screen announcer, but if someone thinks otherwise, then whatever; it's not affecting my personal experience, and I'm certainly not going to tell them that they're wrong or "don't know what ____ is", because it will be different for different people.

@Brodehouse: No. Because that's not a core piece of gameplay. Capcom could at least argue that removing that feature would be a stylistic choice and that it improves the atmosphere of the game. In this case, there is literally no explanation for removing the ability to remove save data. The reason they gave is bullshit, and being able to delete save data is an incredibly basic function. It's not window dressing; it's a utility that every game should have.

For everyone who's on the "it's an arcade style game anyway" camp, read this:

The problem isn't inherently in the inability to delete save data. The problem is that deleting data is something gamers have been able to do since the inception of save data. There is absolutely NO REASON why this feature would be taken out, other than to fuck the consumer. THAT is the issue here; the blatant attack on gamers. We've seen it with Online Pass, and it's evolving before us.

Plus, it fucking sucks that we can't delete saves, because it's fun to go through again with nothing unlocked sometimes. But that's ironically beside the point here.

I would still gladly buy this full price if I had a 3DS. I really love me my Mercenaries! Though the obvious and unavoidable ploy of dangling Leon at the end of a downloadable leech is pretty repulsive.

Plus I've also read that that Revelations ''demo'' is like three minutes long... But as I said... I love me my Mercenaries. Almost unabashedly so.